Invocations/The Moth and the Flame

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Invocations/The Moth and the Flame
Invocations The Moth and the Flame.jpg
Studio album by
Keith Jarrett
Released1981, May [1]
Recorded1979, November [2]
1980, October [3]
VenueTonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg (West Germany)
Ottobeuren Abbey, Ottobeuren (West Germany)
GenreImprovised music
Length1:22:21
LabelECM Records
[ECM 1201/02]
ProducerManfred Eicher
Keith Jarrett chronology
Nude Ants
(1979) 		Invocations/The Moth and the Flame
(1981) 		G.I. Gurdjieff: Sacred Hymns
(1980)
Keith Jarrett solo piano chronology
Sun Bear Concerts
(1976) 		The Moth and the Flame
(1979) 		G.I. Gurdjieff: Sacred Hymns
(1980)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic3/5 stars[4]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide3/5 stars[5]

Invocations/The Moth and the Flame is a 1981 double album of improvised music performed by Keith Jarrett in two different sessions taking place in 1979 and 1980. Each album has a different approach, setting and conception. In Invocations (recorded at Ottobeuren Abbey, a Benedictine abbey in Ottobeuren, then part of West Germany), Jarrett plays soprano saxophone and pipe organ exclusively, while The Moth and the Flame (recorded at Tonstudio Bauer studios in Ludwigsburg, West Germany) is a solo piano suite . This double album was released by ECM Records in May 1981.[1]

Invocations was performed on the same organ that Jarrett used for Hymns/Spheres.[6] Regarding the recording date, Jarrett recalled: "Just being in the abbey is quite a frightening experience... Everything I played... was extemporaneous, and the two tracks on which I did a soprano-sax over-dub were like minor miracles. It was about forty degrees in there, and my horn felt like an ice cube."[7]

Liner notes[]

As in other of Jarett's albums, this album includes poetry in its liner notes. The included poem is "When things are heard" by Rumi, translated by Robert Bly,[8] although the poem is attributed only to Bly.

When Things Are Heard

The ear participates and helps arrange marriages
the eye has already made love with what it sees

The eye knows pleasure, delights in the body's shape
the ear hears words that talk about all this.

When hearing takes place character areas change,
but when you see, inner areas change.

If all you know about the fire is what you have heard,
see if the fire will agree to cook you!

Certain energies come only when you burn
If you long for belief sit down in the fire.

When the ear receives subtly it turns into an eye,
but if sounds do not reach the ear in the chest nothing happens

Reception[]

The Allmusic review by Richard S. Ginell awarded the album 3 stars, noting:

"If this schizophrenic double-CD set didn't throw Keith Jarrett's most devoted fans for a loop, nothing ever will. Here we have two radically disparate works involving different timbres, attacks and mindsets, both within themselves and with each other. On "Invocations," a seven-movement suite, Jarrett returns to the massive pipe organ in Ottobeuren, Germany for a series of sometimes wildly contrasting episodes... "The Moth and the Flame" finds Jarrett back in a studio with a grand piano, improvising musical still lifes, rambling aimlessly, or doing his rollicking E-flat ostinato thing familiar from the solo concerts. About all that these two pieces share, with the exception of the E-flat movement from "Moth," is an aversion to a jazz pulse, so although there are plenty of rewarding passages here, casual Jarrett browsers are hereby warned".[4]

Writing for The New York Times, Stephen Holden commented that the album "finds the improvisatory pianist-composer at the peak of his powers", and that it offers "a striking aural clarity that is missing on even his most carefully recorded earlier albums. Clarity of tone and dynamic control have always been two of Mr. Jarrett's greatests assets as a pianist. And the new album reveals just how important hearing, as opposed to harmony and compositional structure, is to Mr. Jarrett's spiritually-attuned esthetic." Regarding "Invocations", Holden stated that it "conjures a dialogue between earthly and divine forces, as the saxophone calls forth the organ and the two instruments establish a call-and-response dialogue that contrasts the squealing, animal sounds of the horn with the solemn chords of the keyboard... the piece sustains a haunting spiritual atmosphere, while enabling Mr. Jarrett to summon aremarkable variety of sonorities from the two instruments." Concerning "The Moth and the Flame", he noted that it "consists of five discrete movements that are related stylistically. And the style has more to do with 19th-century Romantic piano literature than with the Bill Evans-influenced popjazz impressionism of earlier albums... The playing is seamless, with the notes cascading in an evenly spaced flow whose fluency and consistency of tone are extraordinary... Enhanced by the digital technology, Mr. Jarrett's chiming, oscillatory pianism has never sounded more impressive."[9]

In an article for ECM Reviews, Tyran Grillo wrote: "In this fascinating double album, a standout even in his extensive résumé, Jarrett fleshes a sparse skeleton with intimate venation... Equal parts hope and doubt, every word both a star and the supernova that ends it, 'Invocations' ranks among Jarrett's most introspective works... 'The Moth and the Flame' floats a thousand pianistic lotuses—and with no less grand a sweep... Jarrett maps out a tessellation of emotion... He winds his way with mirth through every dip of flight... This album, as much as any other in the Jarrett landscape, shows a deep commitment to personal development. He plows these instruments like the fields of his very heart. He is that moth, drawn to a musical flame which, rather than burning him, fuels his humanity all the more."[10]

Jarrett biographer Ian Carr called the album "a superb package,"[11] and wrote: "both albums seem like prayers or invocations for his next musical odyssey."[6] He suggested that the music can be heard as "a summary of Jarrett's recent past — improvised piano and organ albums taken a stage further — and a Janus-like pointer to the future, one indicating the classical repertoire direction, the other anticipating his return to fundamental musical essence... those great sources of inspiration, folk and ethnic music."[7]

Track listing[]

All music by Keith Jarrett

Disc One: Invocations
Ottobeuren Benedictine Abbey (West Germany), October 1980.
 Trinity Organ by Karl Joseph Riepp
Keith Jarrett – pipe organ, soprano saxophone

  1. "Invocations-First (Solo Voice)" - 5:21
  2. "Invocations-Second (Mirages,Realities)" - 8:58
  3. "Invocations-Third (Power, Resolve)" - 7:32
  4. "Invocations-Fourth (Shock, Scatter)" - 6:48
  5. "Invocations-Fifth (Recognition)" - 5:04
  6. "Invocations-Sixth (Celebration)" - 5:33
  7. "Invocations-Seventh (Solo Voice)" - 3:04

Total time: 42:51

Disc Two: The Moth and the Flame
Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg (West Germany), November, 1979.
Keith Jarrett – piano (Steinway)

  1. "The Moth and the Flame Part 1" - 6:58
  2. "The Moth and the Flame Part 2" - 5:36
  3. "The Moth and the Flame Part 3" - 8:23
  4. "The Moth and the Flame Part 4" - 8:07
  5. "The Moth and the Flame Part 5" - 9:42

Total time: 39:31

Personnel[]

Technical Personnel[]

  • Martin Wieland - recording engineer
  • Gabor Attalai - cover photography "Round Fire"
  • Barbara Wojirsch - cover design and layout
  • Manfred Eicher - production

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b ECM Records Keith Jarrett: Invocations/The Moth and the Flame accessed May 2020
  2. ^ Keith Jarrett discography Keith Jarrett: The Moth and the Flame accessed May 2020
  3. ^ Keith Jarrett discography Keith Jarrett: Invocations accessed May 2020
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b Ginell, R. S. Allmusic Review accessed August 15, 2011
  5. ^ Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 112. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
  6. ^ Jump up to: a b Carr, Ian (1992). Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music. Da Capo. p. 124.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b Carr, Ian (1992). Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music. Da Capo. p. 125.
  8. ^ Helminski, K. (2000). The Rumi Collection: An Anthology of Translations of Mevlâna Jalâluddin Rumi, Shambhala Publications ISBN 978-1570627170
  9. ^ Holden, Stephen (September 20, 1981). "Keith Jarrett Turns Romantic". The New York Times. Retrieved March 10, 2021.
  10. ^ Grillo, Tyran (October 29, 2011). "Keith Jarrett: Invocations/The Moth and the Flame (ECM 1201/02)". ECM Reviews. Retrieved March 10, 2021.
  11. ^ Carr, Ian (1992). Keith Jarrett: The Man and His Music. Da Capo. p. 123.
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